Our Senior Pastor handed me The Korea Herald today. Though he did not plainly say, I thought of summarizing the content of today’s issue. I find several interesting and alarming article news, which I intend to write about beginning today:- Obama, Romney make last push in tight race
- Moon, Ahn agree on private talks on unified candidacy
- Two nuclear reactors shut down for substandard parts
- Welfare key campaign agenda for big three
- With the U. S. presidential election on a knife edge…How will the outcome affect Korea?
- Education is now a global issue
- The biggest issue in U. S. election, and
- The world has a stake in outcome of U. S. election
Reading the first article news, I realized the meaning of my conversation with one Korean pastor yesterday about the difference between the systems of election in the US and South Korea. He has been telling me about “direct” and “indirect” ways of knowing the election results. The article news distinguishes between “the nationwide popular vote” and “state-by-state contests”. In “democratic” countries like South Korea, knowing the election results is direct or by nationwide popular vote whereas in the US, it is indirect or determined by the majority number of states voting for a candidate.
I find one interesting comment related to Obama’s advantage over Romney. The writer connected such advantage to the way President Obama responded to Superstorm Sandy. Reading this comment I could not help but remember an article I read several days ago about the belief that Hurricane Sandy was actually technologically manipulated.
Turning to the second article, it puzzles me how a presidential candidate like Ahn Cheol-Soo could join forces with Moon Jae-in, a left-wing presidential candidate? Except for his welfare platform, it appears to me that Ahn has at least two similarities with Ron Paul, the US Tea party Congressman in terms of monetary reforms. His platform of cutting government spending and tax exemption measures are commendable moves seen from the perspective of Austrian economics.
The third news is particularly interesting to me for it is my first time to experience winter. Autumn is already difficult for me and people here laughed at me when they heard me say, “It’s very cold.” For them, autumn is their most awaited season.
The third article is about the shutting down of two units of nuclear reactors in South Jeolla Province, South Korea due to “substandard parts”. This government announcement alarmed the public over safety and power shortages in the approaching winter. It was even predicted that a possible partial blackout would occur during the first two months of 2013. The Knowledge Economy Ministry, in order to prevent the negative repercussion, organized a contingency team to communicate with businesses consuming huge amount of electricity.
Reading this article, I also came to know the significance of nuclear plants in the total economy of South Korea. I realized that 30% of the country’s total power need is coming from nuclear power plants. And also some businesses related to nuclear production are worried about the impact of the unfortunate incident on their export. Moreover, it was reported that South Korea “has sought to become a major world nuclear energy country” and actually “won a $20 billion contract to supply four nuclear reactors to UAE in 2009.”
Note: First posted last November 6, 2012
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